Story Time…

“The government’s negotiations with Raz are failing. He and his private army is still not letting go of the neighboring land they have captured. The President said that he will not stand the insult of the rangers. By this as we already know he meant the incident when Raz’s group captured a few of rangers beat them up and stole their guns. Now in other news…” Just then the phone rang. Tom slowly picked it up. “Hello? Yes? Ok sir I know the situation fully well. Where will be my headquarters? Oh ok sir.” Tom slowly got up and walked towards his cupboard. “Finally, the matter is in the army’s hand. I am going to prove that I m a good leader” tom thought as he took out his uniform. He was needless to say a colonel in the army. He was no doubtedly given the assignment to tackle Raz and his group. Raz was once the ally of the government but that was when the government funded him to supply training to men and send them to enemy countries to cause chaos. But with the passage of time the government’s policies changed. So they stopped funding Raz. He didn’t support the decision and started attacking shops, demolishing them near his base of operations which was cleverly disguised as a boarding school.

June 10 20 days later…

Tom was standing outside a panel of jury who was viewing his case. “Mr. Tom in light of the new evidence received from the journalist you are free to go. All charges of mass murder against you have been cleared. The army understand what you did was for the sake of the honor of the army. But as the general public wouldn’t understand, you have been transferred to another city. What has happened here today will remain a secret. Colonel Tom do you have any requests, Questions?”

“No sir, But I would like to see that journal that journalist gave.”

“Here then Colonel.” The Jury handed him the journal.

Tom looked at the journal with tearful eyes saluted the jury and went out of the Court room.

Chapter 2

Tom slowly sank into his comfortable armchair after packing his belongings. The journal laid there on a table near him. He called out his servant for a cup of coffee. He was just sitting there staring at the journal. “Bad memories, I should throw it away.” He thought. But today his body was not obeying his mind. His hands unintentionally went towards the journal he opened it and started reading with great interest.

May 23

Today I arrived at the base camp. The army has already surrounded Raz’s school for young gentlemen. They are slowly cutting of their power and supplies. It’s a classic siege strategy. The commander of this operation is Tom. I never heard much about him. But the troops here love him. I consider myself quite lucky to be in the base camp as the commander isn’t allowing any journalists either near the base camp of Raz’s school. The commander of course didn’t take kindly to my stay here. But Thanks to my bro I m in.

P.S Don’t forget to meet the commander tomorrow and to thank him personally.

May 24

Today I met the commander. He seems like a nice guy. Pretty calm about the on going situation. He of course didn’t give any official comments on the ongoing situation. But I was glad he didn’t throw me out. The troops here all are very nice and helping. They are pretty confident that their siege plan would work. For this they often fire noise bullets. And the enemy returns fire. They are trying to run them out of ammunition.

May 25

Today was very exciting. I overheard one of the plans tom was setting up with his officers. The plan is to see the enemy’s motion more clearly. For this purpose Tom is going to send out some troops to raz’s school in the middle of the night, they will plant some T.N.T there and would blow the outer perimeter wall.

May 26

The plan couldn’t take place as planed due to heavy rain. The siege has tightened but the demolishing of the outer perimeter wall is becoming necessary, to keep an eye out for the mercenaries.

May 27

The rain continues. But the plan must take place. So Rika the newly appointed lieutenant colonel has decided to go with some of the troops himself to plant the T.N.T and to raise their moral.

May 27

The sad news of the death of the four troops and the lieutenant arrived just 20 minutes ago. Its 1 am right now but all of the troops are sad and none of them seem sleepy. And if I wasn’t mistaken I saw tears on the cold face of Colonel Tom.

May 27

Its 2 o clock the troops managed to recover the bodies with no casualty. The story of the death of the lieutenant colonel was really a sad one.

At this time Tom’s servant came with a cup of coffee for him. And was surprised to see tom crying for he had never seen any emotion on his masters face. But without saying a word he placed the coffee near him and left. Tom slowly wiped his eyes, picked the cup and took a sip from it. Then he went back to the old memory lane that the journal took him to.

They had successfully planted the T.N.T and were coming back. The rain had provided an excellent cover but just then it happened, what tom was afraid of and because of which didn’t let the plan to commence the earlier night. The sky flashed revealing the troops and the lieutenant colonel. Raz’s mercenaries took no mercy and shot them all on the scene. There were no survivors. Tom is in real anger right now. It’s the first time troops have seen him like this.

May 28

After last nights hectic and sad happenings, today brought no change. Except, maybe for the sudden change in Tom’s strategy. He got up early in the morning made some military arrangements and soon announced to the mercenaries in the following words, “Surrender or die.” After last night happenings it wasn’t a big surprise.

May 29

The announcement has enraged the religious circle as Raz and his officers are considered and thought of highly in the religious circle. Tom today delivered a really moving speech to the troops. And I must say to handle the troops in such a state when they want vengeance is truly amazing.

May 30

The army has started launching smoke grenades from a distance now as the outer perimeter wall had been brought down. But until now none of Raz’s mercenaries have surrendered. I don’t think that they realize they have killed a Lieutenant colonel that day in the rain. As it’s a high post and to kill such an officer surely means that time for talking is over.

May 31

Tom has had enough. Tonight he has decided and named a 13 man team. The plan is to take them by surprise quickly and swiftly with no casualty on the either side. I heard tom distinctively say to those soldiers not to kill someone.

May 31

The operation was progressing nicely. The soldiers were successful in breaching the perimeter and capturing all of the guards. We were in the radio room hearing their progress. The soldiers soon cleared out the outer perimeters. It was time for them to move in now. And the way things were progressing everyone thought that it was going to be over soon without any casualties. But we spoke too soon. The soldiers didn’t check the church situated outside the inner compound thinking that as a place of God only those who want peace will take shelter there. And that mistake cost them their life. A single man was hiding on the top of the tower. He waited and as the soldiers turned their backs on the church he revealed himself and fired. 5 soldiers fell down. As the soldiers turned around to kill him the doors to inner compound open and after that all we heard was the sounds of bullets and the screams of our soldiers.

June 1

It’s been very quiet in the base camp. Everyone is grieving. Tom hasn’t came out of his room after the incident.

June 2

Tom finally came out. And he issued the following order after gathering the troops. “Use what ever means you want, you have my permission. The time of siege and playing it safe is over. Kill everyone. I am in charge. You will bring Raz down tomorrow. Prepare yourself. They have slapped on the army’s face we must take action now to save army’s reputation or else everyone will follow their lead and the land will fall down. So hesitate not in killing anyone you think can hurt you. May it be children women or men. You are under me and you will stop at nothing. There is no president there is no higher command. We will avenge the death of our fellow soldiers. Those who do not wish to follow me can leave now.” It wasn’t any surprise that no one moved. Those words of Tom had a great effect on the soldiers.

June 3

In the early morning Tom started bombing the inner perimeter. Grenades, mortars, tear gas shells you name it and they were using it. After two hours of bombing Tom grabbed a gun and lead the soldiers into the battle.

June 3

Tom returned triumphant. Not a single more soldiers’ life had been lost. They had finally brought an end to the siege. Raz was captured. His brother and son had been killed. Raz was a broken man. The army was triumphant.

Tom slowly closed the journal as it had no more entry. As he threw the journal towards the wastebasket, a letter hidden some where in the journal fell out. He slowly got up and picked up the letter it was addressed directly to him. He tore it open, and started reading it.

“I am deeply sorry I could not publish this journal as I fear for my life. Our country and our nation will always support Raz. As he was a religious leader, our people always were blind in the name of the religion and I am sad to say they still are. In our country you can get away by doing the highest of wrongs in the name of the religion and the people will support you. We may be a free country but we are still the slaves of our religious leaders. They are like the puppeteers that are controlling the strings of our nation. Sir, again I am truly sorry I couldn’t had told the story to the world but I am sending this journal as a proof of what happened to the jury who is trialing you. I am sorry again sir, that I am not as a brave man as you are and I fear for my life. Please forgive me if you ever can.P.S: I am truly satisfied and happy with what you did. If you hadn’t took that decision every Tom Dick and Harry would stand up and slap any military man he wants on the face and expect to get away from it. The military is the highest enforcer in the country and if its reputation falls, the country falls. Now I understand why when a military convey gets attacked in the troubled areas of our country the military doesn’t rest until they have killed someone who possesses even the slightest threat. In the end I would again apologize sir, FORGIVE ME.”

Tom slowly folded the paper inserted it back in its envelope. “Haze, please bring me some petrol and matches.” He called out to his servant. When the servant brought him what he desired, he soaked the journal in the petrol along with the letter and lighted it with the matches. After doing that, he watched the fire for some time then he got up and slowly made his way out of the door thinking, “Till when will we remain the slaves of the religious leader? Till when we do anything and support anyone in the name of the religion? Till when we remain the puppets giving our strings to the religious leaders? When will our nation wake up?”

Writers request to all readers: Please think about it.

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This entry was posted on September 9, 2007 at 18:57 and is filed under Stories.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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yea we are fanatics and if someone tries to play cool and calm he/she is labelled as kafir, gutakh you name it….
i remember a similar situation from last year when fb was banned and some of us friends had taken admission in alhuda summer course…there was this girl, a third year med student who was quite happy coz fb was banned…one day in break me and zara were discussing it when she came up and adressing me said you don have to be soo liberal ,its the matter for our Rasool and she kept on saying what she wanted (sorry the comments getting tooo long but…) when she stopped i told her that i wasn’t in favor of what those insane ppl were doing but in my humble opinion we should use the media whether its fb or twitter or whatever as a platform, where we should unite and reply those “REAL” gustakhs in a peacefuland productive way…Now she was furious and almost yelled at me saying how dare you talk of using the “SAME” media those bastard used to disgrace us in replying them…Now that was enough I started laughing and said no more and she called me an ignorant and asked zara(my frnd) to talk some sense into me:P

wow o.O you really dug up a really old post xD and lol yea thats true people are mindless when it comes to Religion. So easy to govern and fool in to doing what ever you want just in the name of Religion -.-